In general, in manufacturing of a head receiving portion of a hat, a plurality of pieces of fabric are sewed to form the shape of the head receiving portion and the sewed portion is surrounded with a piece of fabric cut in the shape of a tape and then sewing is performed to prevent exposure of the sewed portion.
As for the tape-shaped cloth, a flexible tape, e.g., a woven bias-cutting tape or a tricot tape, is used to be smoothly aligned along the curved portion connected by sewing in the head receiving portion.
However, in the finished head receiving portion, the flexible tape has disadvantage due to its characteristic of tension that causes wrinkles in the portion where the plurality of piece cloths are connected in the head receiving portion. The entire exterior shape of the hat may be loosened or shrunk so that it may be different from the pattern in the initial design.
In order to solve the problem, the possible deformation of the fabric and the tape are considered in the design phase, or the shape of the hat is adjusted with a high-temperature steam mold after sewing is finished.
However, it is difficult to accurately measure the amount of deformation due to properties of the fabric or the flexible tape, and the shape deformed during the sewing is not fully restored to its previous condition. Moreover, the shape adjusted by the steam mold is deformed once again as time passes because the flexible tape and a plurality of panels forming the head receiving portion are gradually contracted.
The contraction of the fabric and the flexible tape of the head receiving portion causes deformation of the external appearance of the hat, and the quality of the hat may be deteriorated.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.